


Thawed With Gentle Persuasion

by feeling_warm_and_bright, thegoodlannister



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Diego Hargreeves, Canon Non-Binary Character, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ghosts, Homelessness, Hypothermia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18822493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feeling_warm_and_bright/pseuds/feeling_warm_and_bright, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodlannister/pseuds/thegoodlannister
Summary: Every year, when the weather turns, the veil between the spirit realm and the place Klaus occupies becomes especially thin. The effects are... chilly. Diego curled around him? Is not.





	Thawed With Gentle Persuasion

 

 ****It just fucking figured they were born in October.

 

_Oh, holy shit._

 

Klaus woke the way he usually did, coming to awareness both slowly and all at once, the intermittent bursts of stimuli snatches of something he couldn’t place and didn’t bother trying with; mostly, he knew by now, they didn’t belong to him anyway. Twitching and flinching, teeth gritted, every muscle was poised for _something._ What was the saying? Bow-string tight, like Vanya’s violin when it was freshly tuned, and that thought was funny enough to burst open the fragile bubble lodged in Klaus’ ribcage, a cough of laughter working its way up past his back teeth, too loud in the eerie quietness that seemed only a little less now than it had in their childhood. It was one of the selling points of the house to their prick father, probably, and that was funny too, had Klaus mumble-screaming into his fist, balling it up against his mouth and rocking forward until his forehead rested on the blanket that covered his legs. When his other hand came up to scrabble at his chest, it came away sticky-wet. Around the laugh, his breath delivered itself in gasps that he gulped down through a straw.

 

( _You can’t gulp through a straw, silly, it’s not enough._ For some reason it sounded like Mom’s voice, but after he thought it, he couldn’t tell if maybe _he_ was the one who’d said it out loud, which only made him gulp harder.)

 

Klaus had years of experience discerning the difference between the ghosts his mind conjured up and those that just… conjured themselves, the ones that appeared uninvited and unannounced, with their bags packed to stay. The knowledge came in handy, because each showed up with baggage of the other kind as well, trauma pre-installed  -- just like living people, except less solid, more _wispy_. Husbands who had left and children who hadn’t called until it was too late and when Klaus was feeling particularly snippy, when they hadn’t let him get any real sleep in days, demanding he listen to stories that weren’t his own and that he’d never asked to hear, it was hard to remind himself that yelling _‘you know, maybe there’s a good reason your kids didn’t want to talk to you’_ to empty air wasn’t the best course of action.

 

It was always bad this time of year, since before he was old enough to understand why it was bad. Didn’t make it any easier to deal with, though.

 

Flinching again, Klaus dug his heels into the mattress, scooted backward, the sheets under his ass bunching, until he felt the grounding press of the wall against his back, cold as stone and very, undeniably, _thankfully_ solid. Above his head he could picture the words he’d scribbled as a kid on nights similar to this one, sharpie stolen from Pogo’s stash of teaching utensils, his skull eliciting a hollow thump when he let it fall back to rest against them. Pogo was dead now too, like Dad. Hadn’t seen him yet, though.

 

 _Fuck off, Pogo._ It was crowded enough in here without the monkey’s  -- _chimp’s?_ \-- immortal soul taking up space too, and he wasn’t sure what he’d say to Pogo if he did show up. _I forgive you?_

 

He did, but he probably shouldn’t have. Each thought came on the heels of the one before it, nipping, disjointed enough that he knew, somewhere, distantly, that it should have worried him.

 

 _“_ You okay?” Ben was saying, somewhere to the left of him, probably perched on the end of the bed, watching, like he often did when Klaus was sleeping. What a royal creep his dead brother was sometimes, and Klaus hummed to himself to block the words out, which wasn’t really fair, because Ben was only asking because he cared. Ben was the only one of them who cared; maybe because he was the only one who’d known Klaus when he was alive. That would make sense. To the rest of ghoulies that surrounded him, he was just a willing conduit.

 

Or unwilling. You know, _to-may-to, to-mah-to_. How would they know they were slowly but surely working a drill-bit into the space just behind Klaus’s left eye?

 

The spot in question throbbed, once, menacingly. “Peachy,” he ground out, because he owed him an answer. He couldn’t bring himself to give a shit if it was convincing, though; that was all Ben was getting out of him.

 

Had it been only Ben, it would have been okay. And sometimes it was -- not often, but sometimes. Not nearly enough. The funny thing was, you wouldn’t think it was true, right? The whole spooky, hand-wavey, All-Hallow’s Eve, thing. It should have been an old wives’ tale. You know, like parents who actually liked tucking their kids in at night and breakfast cereals that were good for you and didn’t taste like shit. It should have been like that, but it wasn’t.

 

The spirits _liked_ this, this change of season time, when you couldn’t predict if the air was going to be warm or cool, when the leaves went crisp and burnt and floated themselves down to accumulate in storm drains and under park benches. When the evenings smelled like woodsmoke and rot. It was like they were drawn to it, some force Klaus didn’t understand but could feel prickling beneath his skin just are surely as they did pulling them out from wherever they hid the rest of the year. Drawing them to him, a big, flashing, **_OPEN FOR BUSINESS_ **sign above his head.

 

 _Damn,_ he was cold, but to take his hands away from his ears long enough to pull the blankets up from the end of his bed was to hear what their gaping mouths were saying -- _maw_ was a really good word, he didn’t get enough use out of it -- so for the moment, Klaus just clamped his thighs together, felt the goosebumps there rub against one another. He now regretted the way he’d kicked off his pants when he’d went to bed last night, too bone-tired to bother with where they’d landed. Across the room, there was a fleece robe Allison had given him because he so often complained about the temperature of the house -- had even over the summer -- but that was across the room. And across the room was, well, he wasn’t sure what had happened to that guy, but his arm was hanging at an odd angle that made Klaus’s stomach flip uncomfortably. He didn’t want to find out.

 

 _“What do you want?”_ he whined, because there was nothing else he could do. The question was rhetorical. He imagined he sounded pathetic, and when he opened his eyes, Ben confirmed it, looking all concerned, his eyes crinkling in the way they had back when Klaus had taken handfuls of pills like the contents of a party grab bag, not bothering to see what was in his hand before he swallowed.

 

 _What do you want?_ Wasn’t that the million dollar question? There was nothing he could give them. When they were kids, back before their dad had made sense of Klaus’s gift and what it meant (back before he’d been Klaus and had been only Number Four), it had been one Klaus had asked often, appearing in the doorways of his siblings’ rooms in the middle of the night when they didn’t answer, asking for permission to set up camp on the floor next to their beds, or, if they were feeling generous, to tuck into their shoulders until the sun hit the corners of his room. (Once, he’d gone so far as to approach the room where he knew their dad slept. What possessed him to do that he didn’t know - desperation, a latent death wish, maybe - but Mom had found him before he managed to get the door open. Good thing too, because the lock on the inside of his door probably would have found its way to the outside if she hadn’t, and Klaus didn’t think he could have handled being locked in there too.)

 

“You’re not okay,” Ben argued, the sleeves of his hoodie rolled down over his hands, like he was trying to keep them warm. Maybe he was cold too. Could ghosts get cold, he wondered? What with being non-corporeal and all, you’d think they’d be immune, but you also wouldn’t think ghosts actually gave a shit about Halloween, so what the fuck did he know?

 

Man, being psychic was _way_ cooler in the movies.

 

“Hey, Bennie? Can ghosts get cold?” The words sounded slurred even to his own ears, which would probably have been worrying for someone who hadn’t listened to themselves slurring as often as Klaus had. For Klaus, though, it was pretty standard, and he wrinkled his nose, trying to coax some feeling back into the tip of it. “Maybe I should ask one of these guys.” If ghosts _could_ get cold, the time would probably be now, because his knees had started knocking together in a frantic way he couldn’t quite control and which he realized as though the sensation belonged to someone else, smarted just a bit. _Hmm._

 

“Klaus.” His brother’s voice was sharp. Why did he sound so worried? Ben, Klaus thought, really needed to chill before he gave himself a coronary. Except he was already dead, so maybe that was less of an issue than he gave it credit for. “Focus.”

 

From inside the closet, someone howled, long and loud and horrifically lonely, the kind of sound that made the hair on the back of Klaus’s neck stand up and pay attention. There was a disconnected part of him that wanted to tell whoever it was that he got it; really, he’d be screaming his head off too if he was stuck in there. Whether closets were metaphorical or physical, they sucked.

 

“ _Ha!”_ he snorted, prompting a tickle he couldn’t ignore inside his nose, and he removed one of his hands from his ears for just long enough to scrub at it. “Oh man, you’ll never guess, I think there’s someone stuck in the closet? Get it? Stuck in the closet…” He might have been planning to say more, but Klaus lost track of the statement before it could materialize any further, and the tail end of it trailed off into his shuddering breaths. The straw was still lodged in his throat, whistling.

 

“Klaus, listen to me.” _Chill man._ No, he definitely hadn’t said that out loud because Ben was still talking. “You need to get warm, okay? The extra blanket, at the foot of your bed, the one Diego gave back in September. Or put on some damn pants. It doesn’t matter what, but you’ve gotta do something, man. You’re practically blue. I’m not a doctor, but we’ve done this before, and we _both_ know this isn’t good.”

 

The howl came again, the closet door rattling with it, and Klaus full-body shuddered. Something, colder than the air around it, moved through him. Ben’s hand? He wasn’t sure. “No way, Bennie-boy.” What did he know about being cold anyway? He still hadn’t answered Klaus’s question about whether he could even get cold. “What I need is to get the _f-fuck_ out of this room and maybe never sleep again.” His tongue felt unwieldy, too big for his mouth, too slow for his thoughts. “Capiche?”

 

The need to get out was a living thing. Across the room, there was no lock on the outside of the door. This was something he knew, logically. There never had been, and yet the thought gnawed at the edges of his mind. What if it didn’t open? What if the closet door did? What if he was stuck in here, just him and Ben and the dead man-woman-child losing its shit in the closet? The guy with the arm that totally had a complex fracture and the twins he knew were under the bed because feeling them, sapping away at his energy, was almost as bad as seeing them?

 

(What if he closed his eyes and he was thirteen years old again with packed ground damp beneath his pajama bottoms - sodden, clinging like a second, filmy skin - and a stone door separating him from the outside world that only his dad could open and wouldn’t touch until morning? What then?)

 

He let out another half-hysterical laugh. Right now, either scenario could just as easily have been true. His neck was still tacky with cold dream-sweat.

 

“Please, just put some pants on first,” Ben was saying. In another situation, this might have been funny, he thought. He’d have to remember that, when he could trust his own mind.

 

When Klaus’s feet hit the floor, the bottoms stung, the cold so intense it might have been wood or it might have been dirt, earth that hadn’t seen the sun and had since frozen solid as ice on the surface of a pond. His landing jarred him all the way up to his knees, bones clacking together. He would have liked to have said something like ‘ _you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’_ but there wasn’t enough breath, the air in the room crystalizing in his lungs and god, god, _god_ it wasn’t fair that they had to take so much from him just to make something of themselves. A useless thought; it wouldn’t change anything, but he knew, in some deep, secret place, that there was and always had been dangerously little left for them to take. _Fuck._

 

He practically fell out of the room, door swinging open with the momentum of his body, practically fell down the stairs. It was enough noise to wake the house, enough noise to wake the _dead -_ and there was that laugh again. Though all of this was supremely unfunny, he’d hardly ever laughed harder, shoulders heaving with it, the almost constant twitch and release of his muscles reminiscent of his first days without the narco.

 

Jesus Christ he wished he was high.

 

He’d never done this sober before, not since he’d had the choice not to. The weeks after his birthday last year had passed in a brightly-colored haze of unfamiliar hands and trips that had left him feeling split wide-open in a way that wasn’t either pleasant or unpleasant. Fun fact, on All-Hallow’s Eve itself, he was pretty sure he remembered going down on a guy for enough ecstasy that he’d blacked out. The next morning, he’d called Diego from a pay phone and asked for a ride to the drug store, because his lip was split and he knew once he saw the damage, Di would pay for the antibiotic cream Klaus couldn’t afford to buy for himself. He’d asked what happened, but Klaus hadn’t had a choice. By the time he had woken up, whatever money he’d made the night before had already been gone, and the sky was grey and raining.

 

Diego had given him five bucks.

 

Klaus couldn’t stop the high whine that rose from his throat when finally he stumbled into the living room, nearly losing his footing on the edge of the carpet -- not that he tried. If there was anyone in the house still left asleep after his trip down the stairs, his misery wasn’t going to wake them. He’d go through the withdrawal again just to avoid this, no joke. The withdrawal wasn’t worse. No way it could be, and as he collapsed on the couch, he drew his knees up to his chest, laying his head on the arm rest and feeling the bobbing of his throat with every labored swallow, the grandfather clock that had stood watch since they were kids ticking away the interminable seconds.

 

It was quieter here, just barely -- they were drawn to his room, just like they were drawn to the rest of him -- and he reached blindly into the recesses of the couch, feeling around old crumbs until his fingers found the smooth plastic of the CD player he’d left smooshed between the cushions when he’d gone up to bed. Ben sometimes scolded him about the volume levels he regularly subjected his ears to, but his brother appeared to have stayed upstairs, along with all but a handful of his ghostly visitors ( _thanks, Ben),_ so Klaus cranked the volume all the way up to twenty as he settled the headphones over his ears. Even the scritchy feel of their padding was a comfort.

 

The shuddering, he noted as he curled in on himself, seemed to have worn itself out, and for that he was grateful, because it looked like one of his siblings had already stolen the blanket that was usually hung over the back of the couch. Not a big deal, though. It was cold in here; obviously someone else had needed it, and anyway, the longer he laid here, the warmer he felt, really. Almost comfortable. And as long as he only closed his eyes for a few minutes at a time, he didn’t run the risk of falling asleep again.

 

There were worse ways to spend the night.

 

\---

 

Diego shifted uneasily, pulling his blankets further up over his ears as he shivered, half aware in some sleepy way that something was _wrong_.

 

He yawned, reaching a stiff hand up to scratch at his nose, and it was only when icy fingers came up to his face that it occurred to him that _hey, my nose is numb_. Blinking the last traces of sleep from his eyes, he realized that Jesus fucking Christ, it was _cold_ in his room.

 

He lay there for several long, frigid moments, cursing whatever terrible Hargreeves luck he was experiencing at that moment, and debating whether it would be better to huddle under his blankets and pray one of his siblings got up to see what the fuck happened to their heat, or if he should just admit defeat and leave the relative warmth of his bed and deal with it himself.

 

He was startled out of his internal debate -- jumping out of bed, knives in hand before he even consciously registered what was happening -- by a clatter on the stairs, a high pitched, strangled noise that prompted something in the back of his mind to whisper _Klaus_. He crept to the door, peering into the hallway and instantly checking the door to Klaus’s room and finding it thrown wide open. He glanced down the hall next, which yielded no further clues to the whereabouts of his brother, but did give him the opportunity to regret falling asleep without a shirt as he shivered in the doorway and, yep, that was his breath clouding the air in front of his face.

 

Maybe the cold had roused Klaus -- Diego knew he often had difficulty sleeping, sometimes sleeping for only a few hours before jolting awake to find a new activity, a new _distraction_. Although that thought prompted the image of Klaus, heavy tools in each hand, taking apart their fucking furnace, and picturing that was almost more concerning than the cold itself. Klaus was far more clever than a lot of people gave him credit for, Diego knew, but Diego had also seen him beat the absolute shit out of the toaster when it stopped working, before Five had rescued the poor thing, and he’d made a note to keep his brother away from the more vital hardware in their house.

 

Of course, Diego considered as he pulled on the first sweater he could find and slipped carefully into the hallway, picturing that was really just a temporary distraction to avoid thinking about the noise he’d heard -- too wet to be a laugh, but too hysterical to be a sob -- that had followed what sounded suspiciously like someone falling down the stairs. There were more than a fair share of people who’d love to take a crack at any one of the Hargreeves, not to mention the more _unsavory_ people Klaus had met in his own dealings, and Diego shivered again, unsure if it was from the temperature or the thought of finding Klaus bloody and broken at the bottom of the stairs, finding his throat had been slit or his head bashed in while his siblings slept across the fucking hall.

 

So he moved carefully, quietly down the stairs, trying to check for as many possible hiding spots as he could in a house this fucking big, looking for signs of a struggle, listening for further sounds of distress. All he really heard was the pounding of his own heartbeat, the soft chattering of his teeth before he forcefully clenched his jaw to still them, and that only served to heighten his already strained nerves. Klaus had clearly come out of his room at some point, and if he was awake downstairs why the fuck was it so quiet? The man was always making some manner of noise, kicking his feet or tapping his fingers on the table, seemingly incapable of staying still for even a moment, and the fact that Diego couldn’t hear _anything_ spurred him into moving a little faster, knives still raised and poised for attack.

 

Diego hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, finding no clear clues as to how to proceed before instinct had his feet moving into the living room almost before the rest of his mind caught up -- he thought, briefly, of Klaus’s quiet observation after one particularly hectic afternoon that sometimes, just sometimes, it seemed as though Ben could scream in their ears loud enough to get through on _some_ level, even if they couldn’t really hear him. He glanced around out of the corner of his eye as he crept into the living room, as though maybe he could see Ben moving around him, and he tried to pretend he wasn’t disappointed to find no familiar forms hiding in the shadows.

 

He peered around the doorway, frowning as he spotted no hidden assailant, but also no hidden brother, about to chalk it up to faulty intuition when he just barely caught a flash of something too pale and too _still_ to offer any comfort, pressed against the back of the couch. Diego quickly rounded the couch, and immediately saw why he had initially thought the room to be empty.

 

Klaus was on the couch, sure, but he had somehow managed to burrow most of his body under the cushions. Diego knelt down, noting that although Klaus had always been pale his exposed skin -- _so much fucking skin, it’s so fucking cold, why isn’t he wearing more clothes? --_ was tinged with a frankly alarming hint of blue. Not to mention that Klaus hadn’t lifted his head or in any way acknowledged Diego, wasn’t shivering at all in the unreasonable cold, and Diego found himself holding his breath, terrified as trembling fingers reached out to check for the pulse he _prayed_ to find.

 

Klaus’s skin was _frigid_ when he touched it, and Diego wasn’t able to take that next breath until he finally, _finally_ felt a heartbeat. Too soft, too sluggish, but _there_. But Klaus still wasn’t responding to him, breathing unsteady and shallow, muscles barely twitching as Diego grabbed him under his arms and hefted him up from behind the cushions, and Diego thought of his training at the academy, thought of _hypothermia_ and _paradoxical undressing_ and _terminal burrowing_ and he shifted his grip, hooking one arm beneath his knees and the other around his shoulders, hefting Klaus up and turning to move towards the stairs in one quick motion because he needed to get Klaus’s temperature up _right fucking now._

 

He tried not to think as he took the stairs two at a time, slowed just a little by Klaus’s weight -- _too fucking thin, is he not eating?_ \-- tried not to think of the way he could feel the icy chill of Klaus’s skin through his own sweater, or of the way his pupils had been blown wide, far too dilated as his unfocused eyes drifted right past Diego’s face, or of the way that Klaus was only now just starting to mumble, voice slurred as though even the effort of coordinating his mouth and tongue was too much.

 

As soon as Diego was back in his room he dropped Klaus onto his bed, pulling off his sweater to wrap it around Klaus’s chest -- his arms were far too limp right now for Diego to even consider trying to force him into the sweater properly -- before bundling him in the blankets. But they didn’t look like they would be enough, it was _so cold_ and Klaus’s lips were practically purple so Diego turned, opened the first door he came to, which happened to be Five’s, judging by the shouted _what the FUCK, Diego_ ? that followed him as he ripped the blankets off the bed and hurried back to his own room. He turned Klaus onto his side -- he couldn’t remember if recovery position was for all emergencies or just for seizures, but he figured it at least wouldn’t _hurt_ him -- tucking the stolen blankets around him, swaddling him from his head to his blue toes, leaving nothing but his face peeking out.

 

Five came into the room as he was finishing making sure there were no open spaces between the blankets for cold to seep in, or for heat to seep _out_ , here looking for a fight if the look on his face was anything to go by. Diego whirled around, teeth bared, and he was pretty sure he didn’t mean to _hiss_ like that, like he was some sort of fucking animal, but he was a little preoccupied at the moment, okay? He couldn’t keep track of silly little things like _words_ or _acceptable social interaction_ at a time like this. He couldn’t see his own face, of course, but the look on it must truly have been something, considering the way Five’s eyes widened, flickering back and forth between his crouched position by the bed and the lump of blankets that was just barely beginning to stir. Five stepped backwards out of the room, hands raised as though Diego would any moment leap to his feet and go for the throat -- and, really, Diego couldn’t even have said that was an impossibility, in the moment.

 

“You know what, you’re clearly busy, I’ll come back later.”

 

Diego turned back to Klaus before Five had even finished speaking, ignoring the retreating footsteps and the quiet voices in the hallway, because of course _now_ the rest of their siblings chose to come out of their rooms, and all Diego could think was what if he hadn’t gotten up to investigate, what if he hadn’t found Klaus, what if they’d gone down in the morning to the sight of Klaus cold and stiff and _dead_ in their own fucking living room?

 

He tried to push that nightmare from his mind, because it really wasn’t going to help Klaus if he had a panic attack right now, so instead he ran gentle fingers across his still too cold cheek, relieved to see Klaus’s bleary eyes finally blink open, clearly doing his best to focus his attention. His heartbeat, when Diego reached a hand under the blankets to press against his neck, was still too slow, hazy eyes still drifting around the room, but Diego was relieved to see that he’d at least started shivering, hands clutching unsteadily underneath the blankets and still purple lips mouthing words Diego couldn’t quite understand. It still wasn’t _good_ , but progress was progress, right?

 

Diego cupped Klaus’s cheek in his hand, rubbing his thumb across his cheekbone, noting that while Klaus’s eyes still weren’t _quite_ focusing on his face, they were at least in the general vicinity.

 

“When something’s wrong, you wake us up, okay -- you wake _me_ up.” Klaus blinked, brow furrowing as he appeared to at least register something in the words spoken to him, although Diego would have bet he wasn’t really _hearing_ him right now. So he sighed, finding another sweater for himself now that he had a chance to catch his breath and realize how hard he was shivering, before coming back to sit next to the bed and rub a hand up and down Klaus’s back. He wasn’t sure how much of the gesture Klaus could even feel, between the mountain of blankets he was under and his own bleary confusion, but Diego hoped that at least some part of his mind realized that he wasn’t alone anymore.

 

\---

 

“D-di?”

 

The shivering had started back up again, knocking Klaus’s teeth together just as the familiar cotton of his brother’s ratty blue sweater came into focus. It was one he wore often - brown trim around a neck stretched out from use, with holes Diego had cut into the sleeves himself, so he could stick his thumbs through. Klaus was about eye-level with where his belly button would have been had he been shirtless, and he blinked, even that movement sluggish, his fingers coming up to clumsily pluck at the fabric of Diego’s sleeves, gone soft from repeated washes. Klaus liked the feel of it; it comforted him, so he ran his fingers over the fraying at the edges a second time, noting with some measure of quiet interest how hard he was shaking. Like he was coming off a three-day bender. Like any 4AM Thursday morning, sobering up against his will in an alley somewhere a year ago. His ring finger beat a tip-tip-tap against the prominent bone of Diego’s wrist, even when he tried to keep it still.

 

_Huh._

 

Diego was speaking, like Ben had before, saying something that didn’t matter so much as the cadence of his words did. Klaus recognized it, reassuring and solid -- measured -- with give in just the right places if you knew where and when to press, just like Diego himself. His profile as he leaned into Klaus’s field of vision was backlit with the light that spilled in from the hall, making it kind of look like Diego was wearing what Klaus might have called a halo. Yeah, _definitely_ a halo, and his dark eyes were a little sad. Very molten and very soft. Soft as his sweater. Soft as if the amber in them had been melted down and turned to liquid.

 

He looked beautiful, Klaus thought, the places Diego was touching him tiny points of warmth even through a blanket he didn’t remember having downstairs -- back before this angelic version of his brother had come upon him -- and he couldn’t have stopped the besotted smile that spread across his face if he’d wanted to. He was punch-drunk with it -- and who would have guessed that was almost as much fun as regular drunk?

 

 _“Di,”_ he sighed for a second time, as if there had never been a first, letting all the tension thrumming through every fear-coiled muscle in his body spill out into the syllable, his fingers tangling in the fabric of Diego’s sleeve and hanging on.

 

 _For dear life?_ He thought, holding tighter.

 

_Yes, for dear life._

 

“You already said that,” Diego groused back -- about his name, not about the hanging on for dear life thing. Klaus knew he was staring, but at least he was processing the words now, though there seemed to be a delay, the understanding of what they meant _together_ not dawning until a few seconds after Diego had spoken. He was smiling, just a little, but he looked almost as concerned as Ben had earlier, the edges of his mouth turned down around it.

 

“You’re pouting,” Klaus said -- or at least he _thought_ he said, because Diego’s concerned look increased ten-fold at Klaus’s words.

 

“Huh?” he asked, the space between his eyebrows making a tight little v-shape. “You’re not making any sense.” Which was weird, because Klaus might have been speaking slowly, but he was pretty sure he knew what he was saying. Just over Diego’s shoulder, where the light from the hall didn’t quite reach, he recognized one of the visitors from his room -- a rogue spirit, not especially creepy, who’d found her way over. Her relatively unscathed appearance said she’d died peacefully, however she went, but that did nothing to dispel the quiet desperation pouring off of her. Breathing it in was like pressing his face into a wet sheet, each hot exhale moistening the cotton and each desperate inhale sucking it back against his mouth.

 

It scared Klaus that Diego didn’t seem to be understanding him, and his heart stuttered against his sternum.

 

“I scht… I _schtopped-”_ A crackling breath sent itself shuddering up from the bottom of his piece of shit lungs. Man, crack, cocaine - the cigarettes had been the least of it. He’d always been so predisposed to fucking up. His life. His body. Anything he could. “I d-d--didn’t t--ake any-- anything.” Even to his own ears, Klaus sounded high off his ass, but for some reason, it suddenly made all the difference in the world that he make Diego understand, this one time, he wasn’t.

 

“ _Hnnngh,”_ Klaus gritted his teeth, tried to center himself as his fingers spasmed around their hold on Diego’s sleeve. Tried to stop his teeth from chattering for long enough that he could force the words out. His jaw was clenched so hard it hurt. “I. Didn’t. Take. _Anything._ ” Each word was a slow drag, his lower lip trembling so uncontrollably it caught between his teeth, and before he knew it, drew blood. “It’s just these absolute _bastards._ ” He spit the word like the curse it was. _“_ Don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, you know how it is. _Ha._ ”

 

(Diego really didn’t, but Klaus didn’t want to drive that point home.)

 

“Been-- been sober for…” For how long now? Four months? Five? Since April, anyways. Since they came back here. Came back when -- and while Diego had always been the one to see him at his worst, pants worn through at the knees, bloodshot eyes and a blown vein in his arm and not a word to defend himself, he could no longer stand the idea of his brother believing nothing had changed. Could no longer stand the idea that Diego would stop looking at him like he was right then and did so often now, all soft and fierce and bemused and protective all at once. “I’m _sober_ , Di.” He could have choked on the word he wanted so badly for his brother to believe it.

 

“They’re-- they’re just always--” Klaus would have spread his arms to indicate… well, everywhere, but he wasn’t ready to give up his death-grip on Diego’s sweater, or the meagre warmth of the blankets. “Always _here_ . And I know it’s not their fault. They don’t want to hurt me.” The desperation rolling off the ghost woman hanging over Diego’s shoulder piqued, so sharp Klaus whined with it, neck straining as he swallowed another little giggle of hysterical laughter that he _really_ didn’t need bubbling up right now to freak Diego out even more. This whole thing looked weird enough as it was. “Well, some of them do, but that’s n-n-NOT-- _goddammit_! That’s not the point.”

 

“Jesus, Klaus, I didn’t think you were high,” Diego gasped. He looked hurt, cutting him off before he could get to that point, the one that seemed to keep slipping away before he could get a firm hold on it. Klaus didn’t specifically know if what his brother said was true or not, because even _he_ would have thought he was tripping at this point, and Diego had more reason than most to suspect him; still, that didn’t stop the rush of relief that fizzled along those blown out veins, so intense it left him light-headed. Either that, or it was the hypothermia talking. “Now is really not the time. You’re like _ice_ , man. Whatever the hell this is, we’re getting you warm first. We can worry about everything else once I know you’re not going to freeze to death on me in the next ten minutes. That’s priority number one.”

 

 _Priority number one._ Okay, so Diego had noticed. Well. In that case, it was probably the hypothermia.

 

Klaus held Diego’s gaze, wrapping ice-cold fingers around his wrist and flinching at how much his half-frozen appendages protested even the slightest movement. Even though his touch must have been uncomfortable, Diego didn’t pull away.

 

“I’m sorry,” Klaus said after a long moment.

 

“Sorry?”

 

Diego blinked down at him, and Klaus shrugged, just slightly. “For, I don’t know-- for freaking you out, I guess? Probably should have warned you. I just s-sorta... didn’t think about it? I mean, it’s not like I had anyone to worry about the last couple of times, you know?”

 

Diego was just staring now, like he’d grown a second head, or suggested that Luther was right - in any situation, ever. “Klaus,” he said, slowly, drawing his name out as if exercising great restraint in doing so. “Are you saying this shit’s happened before?”

 

“I mean, _n--nngh_.” Klaus felt his whole body shudder beneath a mound of blankets that smelled like his brother. He tried to breathe through it, but in the end, still had to wait before he could unclench his jaw enough to continue. Once it had, he shook his head, working it open with a pop. “Sorry, teeth just keep doing the… the thing.”

 

Diego didn’t look like he believed him, so Klaus made a dismissive noise that he only cut off  when his brother’s hand pulled out of his grasp. Once he realized Diego was flipping it palm down, however, to thread their fingers together, he couldn’t be bothered to regret the poor job he’d done at pretending. This time, when he allowed it, his shudder was one of bone-deep relief, all the way from the tingly-painful numbness of his toes to the very tips of his ears. “Not often if that’s what you’re worried about,” he hurried to explain, as much as the clumsy movements of his mouth would let him. “Just sometimes. You know ghosties. All _ooo-ooooo_ this time of year. Takes a lot out of you. Gotta love Halloween.”

 

“It’s just that, when it happened before, at least I knew there wasn’t anyone I was going to bother with it.” The pain still lodged on the left side of Klaus’s brain spiked when he rolled his eyes. “Like, _oh wow, a crack-addict shivering on a park bench, now there’s a rare sight._ Nah, I never had to worry. No one even looked at me twice.” Klaus had a feeling his half-smile wasn’t as convincing as he tried to tell himself he wanted it to be when Diego’s grasp tightened on his hand. “So yeah, I was usually able to get through it without anyone knowing a damn bit of difference. One of the perks of being pretty much invisible.” Another smallish shrug, the blankets pulled up around Klaus’s shoulders moving along with it.

 

“Like I said, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I’m good to go now, I promise. Scout’s honor. Nothing to worry about h--here. _Sehr gut._ ”  Despite the way he’d stumbled over his unruly tongue, Klaus’s smile felt more confident when he offered it this time around, less brittle.

 

When he’d finished, Diego’s eyebrow lifted as if to say _you were never a scout_ , and Klaus lifted his own in return.

 

“Though if you were _really_ still worried about making sure I’m not gonna freeze to death or something” -- he spoke to the blanket -- “you know what Dad always said. You know, back in survival training. Remember when he made us take that bullshit class?” The hand in Diego’s grip was slick with cold sweat and still shaking, his thoughts, too, still slippery and tenuous enough that even the middling amount of chagrin he’d usually have felt at such a proposition couldn’t keep its footing for long. It slithered through his fingers like smoke, disappearing when he reached for it. “Nothing beats body heat, baby.”

 

Through the continued chattering of his teeth, Klaus could almost believe that the prospect of returning to his room alone to face whoever and whatever had gathered there didn’t set his heart back to hammering. That the creeping, clawing sensation in his chest was just cold and not fear. That Diego didn’t hold all the cards, and hadn’t already a lifetime ago when Klaus nudged his way into his bed the first time he’d had a nightmare he couldn’t shake.

 

With his wide eyes meeting Diego’s, he could almost tell himself it wouldn’t matter if his brother told him no.

 

\---

 

This was ridiculous.

 

Klaus, while at least aware enough to be conversing, still looked about two seconds away from keeling the fuck over, and there he was, trying to make a fucking joke.

 

Diego felt like he was fourteen again, unable to take his eyes away from Klaus -- Klaus on the couch, tangled up with Ben and laughing hard enough to turn his face an interesting shade of red. Klaus in Mom’s black pumps, so different from the first time he’d tried on heels, graceful and _beautiful_ in a way Diego knew he would never be. Klaus leaning a casual arm against Five as Dad answered questions for the press. Klaus finding a way to make him laugh even on the days his stutter was at its worst, days when he was scared to open his mouth and say anything at all. He thought of watching the joy in Klaus’s bright eyes slowly fade as they got older. Watching Klaus pull away. Watching Klaus fall apart.

 

Diego knew he wasn’t supposed to want this -- he should _never_ have wanted this -- and it wasn’t fair. It was one thing to stare at your brother when you were thirteen and horny all the fucking time, the seven of them crammed into one house with hormones running rampant and no adults interested in explaining to them what the hell puberty was. But Diego was an adult now, he’d had his share of _(failed)_ relationships, he had a good handle over his own body at this point. So why in the everloving fuck did Klaus still have this effect on him?

 

And, really, it wasn’t even that Klaus was attractive -- he definitely _was_ , and lord knows the skirts and the tight shirts and the fucking heels did some very curious things to Diego’s ability to function. If the only problem was that he wanted to fuck Klaus, Diego thought, this whole thing would be easier to navigate. He could just have filed the whole mess under Weird Shit that he sometimes fantasized about -- because didn’t everybody have a little folder stuffed under the mattress of their imagination, the kinks and fantasies they never, ever talked about? No big deal.

 

But right now, Klaus looked like a fucking _mess_ , shaking so hard that Diego was pretty sure he’d have had a hard time understanding him even if he weren’t slurring his words with a numb tongue, eyes still wide and wild. And it made it all so much harder, because the last thing Diego was thinking of was  _fucking_ Klaus. No, he wanted to get in bed next to him, for sure, but he wanted to crawl in beside him, to wrap him up and keep him safe, chase away the monsters that he couldn’t see -- the monsters Klaus wouldn’t even fucking _tell_ him about -- keep him warm and feel him relax against his chest, happy and secure for once in his fucking life. So, yeah, lusting after Klaus would have been easy to compartmentalize. Being absolutely and completely, head over heels _in love_ with the idiot was turning out to be a little bit harder to ignore.

 

Diego turned his focus back to the situation at hand with a sigh, rubbing a tired hand over his dry eyes, and it was only when he _really_ looked back over at Klaus that it occurred to him how long they’d been sitting there in silence. It was only when Klaus suddenly jerked backwards, his hand releasing Diego’s wrist as though he’d been burned, that it occurred to him how _scared_ Klaus looked right then, and Diego couldn’t help but curse himself because, goddammit, he _knew_ how hard Klaus took any kind of perceived rejection.

 

“That was a joke,” Klaus’s words were just a little bit clearer, but it still looked like a struggle for him to figure out how to coordinate his mouth and his tongue to force them out, “in case you, you didn’t get that. Thanks for the, um-- um, the blankets, I’m much b-better now. You’re, uh, you’re tired, I’ll-- I’m gonna-- I’ll go, you-- you’re tired, I’ll--”

 

“Klaus, stop, don’t-- I swear to god, if you don’t put that blanket back _right now_ \--” Diego tried to glare, but he never could seem to keep up the stern facade around Klaus, especially not when he broke out the puppy dog eyes that really shouldn’t have been as effective as they were, considering he was a fucking adult. But they still made something twist in Diego’s chest, just like they did when they were kids and Klaus wanted a warm body to sleep next to when the nightmares woke him, so Diego just sighed, his hands soft as he gently pushed Klaus’s shoulder until he laid back down on the bed, settling the blankets over his shivering form once more.

 

“I didn’t save your scrawny little ass from freezing to death just to have you die anyway to spite me, y’know.” His own smile widened at Klaus’s snort of laughter, and even though he still looked poised to flee he was at least not actively trying to wiggle out from under the blankets anymore.

 

“It’s been a long time since you wanted to sleep in my bed,” and Diego wasn’t sure when his voice got so soft and fond, as gentle as the fingers that had somehow found their way to combing through Klaus’s unruly hair, but he didn’t worry about it too much when he saw the way Klaus relaxed further at the sound.

 

“It’s been a l-long time since I thought you-- you’d let me.”

 

Huh. Diego hadn’t thought he’d be able to feel _more_ like a piece of shit, not after almost sleeping through his brother freezing to death on the goddamn couch, but here he was anyway. Because Klaus tried so hard to hide everything behind jokes and casual remarks -- all smoke and mirrors and clever misdirection to keep people from prying, keep them from _worrying_ \-- but the look in his eyes right now was open and vulnerable and so fucking sad that Diego wanted to kick his own ass for being the one to put it there. It wasn’t Klaus’s fault Diego couldn’t control himself, couldn’t control his thoughts and how much he _wanted_. And Diego thought of all the times he’d scooted over to put space between them when Klaus had sprawled across him on the couch, all the times Klaus had climbed into his bed shaking and terrified only for Diego to turn onto his side and press himself as close to the wall as possible. He thought of Klaus slowly freezing on a park bench while people walked by without a second glance and of Klaus feeling the need to _apologize_ to Diego for the inconvenience of keeping him alive, and he wondered how many times Klaus had thought about asking Diego for help only to convince himself he’d just be turned away.

 

“I’m sorry,” and, god, the words felt so inadequate, but he couldn’t seem to find anything else, as though he was the one with a still thawing brain. And he hated the way his voice broke, and he _hated_ the way the sound had Klaus’s eyes snapping over to him, as clear as they’d been since Diego found him. Because of _course_ Klaus didn’t have the brain power to be concerned with how close he was to dying, but the _second_ Diego sounded even a little distressed he was suddenly forcing himself back into gear, and--

 

“Hey, what the fuck did I tell you about taking off that blanket?” It seemed his voice was steady enough to convince Klaus to stop squirming, but he stayed propped up on one elbow, eyeing Diego like he was looking for a wound or a jagged edge, something he could soothe, something he could fix. So Diego stood with a sigh, taking a moment to step across the room to kick the door closed -- he didn’t immediately see any of their siblings lurking in the hallway, which he hoped meant someone had finally decided to figure out why their hellhole of a house was still so goddamn cold -- before making his way to the bed, stripping off his sweater for the second time that night.

 

“Wh-what are you--”

 

“Body heat, right?” Klaus was still looking at him a little like he was expecting Diego to burst into tears at any moment, so Diego rolled his eyes and pulled Klaus away from the wall to make some room on the bed, ignoring the consequent yelp of protest. “I don’t know how someone so fucking skinny takes up so much space, scoot _over_.”

 

With one final breath to steel his nerves Diego crawled into bed behind Klaus, shifting him a little more to free up enough space beneath the blanket to wriggle underneath, taking care to reseal the blankets around them both. He pretended like his heart wasn’t pounding as he curled around Klaus’s back, trying not to flinch at how cold Klaus’s skin was against his bare chest. Trying to pretend like it didn’t feel so good, so _right_ to slip an arm over Klaus’s waist and pull him in tight against his chest.

 

Klaus was still wound tight, tense and shivering with what Diego suspected was more than the cold, and he couldn’t figure out why until, “y-you don’t-- Di, you don’t have t--”

 

“I don’t _have_ to do anything,” Diego interrupted before he could finish the thought, consciously forcing his own muscles to relax, thumb rubbing back and forth against the back of Klaus’s hand in a way that was as much for his own assurance as it was for Klaus’s. “Go to sleep, Klaus. I’m waking you up in an hour to make sure you don’t die.”

 

“That’s for-- for concussions.”

 

Diego shrugged, not trying to hide his smile as he felt Klaus practically melt into his hold, “yeah, well I’m not taking any chances. You’ve got an hourly wake up call until your teeth stop trying to rattle out’ta your damn skull.”

 

Klaus’s answering laugh made the anxiety gnawing away somewhere in Diego’s chest ease just a little bit, and the silence before them felt so much more comfortable than it had just a few minutes before, until it was broken by Klaus’s low voice, something soft and sweet in the tone that Diego was a little bit afraid to try and put a name to, a little bit afraid he was projecting his own feelings, but that made his heart warm regardless.

 

“Thanks, Diego.”

 

\---

 

You’d think being woken up every hour on the hour would make for a terrible night’s sleep, but, well… Klaus hadn’t had a lot of very good nights in his life, so he didn’t have much to compare it to. In fact, not that he was keeping track, but had he been, he might have ranked this one in his top ten, because if Klaus had his choice, he’d choose Diego waking him over any of his other options every time. His way was a hell of a lot nicer than the ghosts were. Or even the dreams. _Definitely_ nicer than a guy with a badge and a gun yanking him roughly into awareness and onto the pavement below by the elbow.

 

Whenever he blinked his eyes open, Diego was stroking the side of his face fondly, calluses feather-light against Klaus’s stubble, asking how he was feeling on a scale of one to ten, requesting that Klaus wiggle his fingers and toes to prove they weren’t still stiff with cold. Asking him to count backward from ten. Once, he’d even tried asking him who the president of the United States was and Klaus had told him he was pretty sure it was Nixon. After that, he had at least seemed convinced Klaus’s mental faculties hadn’t been damaged -- and honestly, if he hadn’t damaged them yet, there wasn’t much to worry about as far as Klaus was concerned -- but still, there wasn’t a time he came to throughout the course of the night (and Klaus knew a _lot_ about coming to) that it wasn’t to Diego’s concerned gaze looking back at him, eyes crinkling at the edges like he was looking at something a heck of a lot nicer than Klaus’s weary face and wobbling lower lip.

 

The checks came so regularly that Klaus might have asked if Diego had managed to sleep at all in between, had he the capacity, but his thoughts were still river-water muddled, and Diego’s touch along his hairline was distracting. Almost as distracting as the expanse of Diego’s chest pressed skin-to-skin along his back, from the waistband of his boxers all the way up to his shoulders, the steady _thump thump thump_ of Diego’s heartbeat a rhythm that made drifting back to sleep not so much a choice as a long, slow pull into nothingness. It wasn’t worth trying to fight it, and at long last, when it must have been after 5AM, because light was already streaming in through the big picture window above the bed, Diego finally let him sleep through the rest of the night.

 

The next time Klaus woke up, it was in a way he never had before. A way he hadn’t allowed himself to imagine since he was fourteen years old (except on those occasions when he was too fucked up to care what a _very_ bad idea it was, which really wasn’t as rare as it should have been). It must have been noon, and Diego was passed out, face relaxed in sleep, fastidiously barbered hair sticking out in all directions. Sometime in the past five hours, Klaus had rolled over, so that Diego was no longer at his back; instead, they were facing each other. Diego’s breath came slowly, in and and out, and in the cage of his brother’s arms, Klaus felt warm and real. _Alive_. More so than he had in ages.

 

There was a whisper that didn’t belong to him at the edges of his mind -- someone twice his age, a lifetime smoker, someone who’d lost a lot and wanted him to know it, if only because he was the only one who could -- but the thought made him smile all the same, and in the early afternoon light, Klaus drifted. Outside, it was October 30th. The fall chill was here to stay, along with the gaggle of spirits whose ragged fingernails dragged down the windowpane, a sound that cut to the core.

 

In here, it was the only day that mattered.

 

He stared at Diego for a long time, waiting, content, listening to the sounds of their siblings finding a late breakfast rattle up from downstairs -- pots and pans and Five barking orders. Diego deserved the sleep after the night he’d spent making sure Klaus’s blood didn’t freeze straight through in his veins, and when he finally opened his eyes, Klaus smiled.

 

“ _Oh,_ you’re awake,” he observed. He gave a little trill, clasping his hands together. “Yay!”

 

Diego, predictably, responded by cursing at him. “Oh _shit_. Yeah, yeah, I’m awake.” His voice was rough with sleep, though he was already raising himself up onto his elbows to squint critically at Klaus by the time he was conscious enough to piece together the night before. He looked worried at the realization that Klaus had woken before he had - a little guilty, even - which was pretty ridiculous, if you asked Klaus. Diego had stayed up all night for him; no one else had ever done anything even remotely close to that for Klaus’s benefit.

 

“How you doin’, Sleeping Beauty?” he asked after a moment of searching Klaus’s face intently for signs of distress and coming up empty, even by his standards. Klaus preened a little at the nickname, feeling the twinge of a slight blush set on his cheeks. He hoped it would stick. “Nothing freeze off? Everything where it’s supposed to be?” The words were teasing, but Klaus could read the genuine concern behind them, the way perhaps no one else had ever been able to. It made him feel protected. Like he _mattered,_ and dangerous as the feeling was, he decided he liked that too.

 

Still smiling, he shook his head, catching Diego’s hand before it could land when he moved to check his temperature.

 

“Di, I’m _fine.”_ He brought the hand to his lips, where he mouthed along Diego’s scarred knuckles -- ignoring the effort even such a small movement took, how weak he still felt, shaking like a stupid little kitten -- and Klaus was shocked to find that he meant it.

 

His head still hurt, drill-bit still firmly in place. The muscles in his stomach ached, from the shivering, the way they always did after a bad comedown. He couldn’t be sure whether the yelling he heard was still just Five, or if someone else, someone less living, had a problem with him now--

 

But right then and there, with Diego’s big, brown eyes drinking him in and Diego’s favorite pillow soft under his head, everything really, _truly_ , was fine.

 

\---  _Epilogue ---_

 

Diego hummed absently as he whisked the eggs, half listening to the idle bickering of Luther and Five in the background. He wasn’t particularly interested in whatever their latest moral debate was -- and, honestly, judging by the fact that nobody was screaming or throwing furniture, neither of them were particularly invested in it, either. They’d all been spending more time together, getting to actually _know_ each other, for once, but it was still so hard to figure out how to communicate. It was easier to argue, he knew, even if there was no heat behind it. More entertaining, too, judging by the way Klaus kept gently fanning the flames to keep them going -- although it didn’t escape Diego’s notice that his sympathy seemed to lay more with Luther than with Five. He knew it shouldn’t surprise him, what with Klaus’s weakness for strays and Luther’s constant look of lost confusion, and he also knew it shouldn’t _bother_ him -- it turned out that, once out from under the influence of Reginald fucking Hargreeves, Luther actually wasn’t _that_ bad -- but that need to compete with _Number One_ was a little hard to kick, sometimes.

 

He thought he’d been doing a good job of keeping whatever jealousy may have been whispering in his ear from showing on his face, until he caught sight of the way Klaus kept stealing looks at him from the corner of his eye. Looks that said Klaus knew full well that he was getting under Diego’s skin, and was enjoying it very much, but was also keeping a close watch to make sure he didn’t push _too_ far. It was a strange feeling, knowing there was someone watching his back, taking _care_ of him without treating him like he was made of glass, but Diego couldn’t deny the warmth it sparked in his chest, or the way it helped ease the little bit of tension that had been building in his shoulders.

 

He scooped the eggs out of the pan onto a waiting plate, adding two slices of toast and a few links of sausage that he really hoped wouldn’t be identified as turkey. He slid the plate onto the counter, slapping at Five’s hand with his spatula when he made a grab for it.

 

“Diego, wh--”

 

“That is not for you, you little bastard, and you damn well know it. Shut the fuck up and _wait_ , and maybe I’ll make you some next.”

 

Klaus flashed a smug grin Five’s way as he brought the plate in close for inspection. Diego turned back to the stove, getting to work on the next batch of eggs for Luther and Five to battle over -- as long as Klaus got the first plate, Diego really didn’t care what order the rest of them ate in. He went back to humming, a tune that he couldn’t quite place but had vague memories of Mom singing in the kitchen, but he kept Klaus in his peripheral as he poked suspiciously at his food as though it might leap off the plate and take a bite out of _him_.

 

“What is this, Di?”

 

“It’s sausage, Klaus. You _like_ sausage, so eat it before it gets cold.” Diego worked to keep his stance as loose and innocent as possible as he saw Klaus pick up the sausage and turn it over, wrinkling his nose.

 

“It looks weird, what’s wrong with it?”

 

Diego rolled his eyes with a snort. Klaus was _ridiculous_ when it came to food, especially now that he was eating regularly enough that he wasn’t literally starving and could, apparently, afford to be so goddamn picky. Klaus did, in fact, like sausage -- one of the few things Diego could actually fairly consistently convince him to eat -- but he had some bizarre mental block about eating turkey sausage, even though they _tasted the same_. And, yet, Diego had come down on _multiple occasions_ to find Klaus eating frozen waffles straight from the box before washing them down with dry Fruity Pebbles.

 

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with it, just e--”

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Five snaked a hand out to grab for Klaus’s plate once more, “give it to me if you’re not going to eat it, I’m sta-- _hey_!”

 

Diego simply glared back at Five’s incredulously furious expression, because if Five didn’t want a rolling pin thrown at his shitty little head, maybe he should stop trying to steal food that Diego had already expressly forbidden him from taking.

 

“I already told you, that’s _not for you_. Jesus Christ, Five, I’m _actively_ cooking over here, could you wait like two minutes instead of being such a fucking asshole about it?”

 

“Fuck you! He’s not eating it and I’m _hungry_ , and-- hey, how come you don’t yell at Luther!?”

 

“Yell at Luther for wh-- _Luther_ ! What the _fuck_?”

 

Luther, at least, had the decency to look ashamed of himself as he paused his chewing of the toast that _should have been on Klaus’s fucking plate_.

 

“Oh, be nice, Diego! He’s a growing boy, he needs his protein.”

 

“First of all, babe, bread isn’t protein. Secondly, and more important, _you_ need protein. You weigh, like, two pounds, _please_ eat.”

 

“But I’m no--”

 

“Please, Klaus?” Diego leaned against the counter, making sure he was directly eye level with Klaus as he pulled out his biggest, most pathetically sad pleading eyes. Fighting dirty, perhaps, but he really was worried of Klaus dropping dead if he didn’t eat some real goddamn food.

 

“That’s not fair.”

 

Diego held firm, sticking out his lower lip for good measure, only breaking into a smile when he heard Klaus’s over-dramatic sigh of defeat, “Oh my god, _fine_. But I’m not gonna like it.”

 

“It’s good, you’ll like it.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“Yes, you will.”

 

“No, I won’t, I can tell. Hey, big guy?”

 

“Yeah, baby?”

 

“Your eggs are burning.”

 

“ _Fuck_!”

 

Diego whirled around, snatching the smoking pan from the stove top. He poked at the congealed, blackened mess of eggs with his spatula. Eeehhh, maybe…

 

“Hey, Five, do you want the--”

 

“Fuck you guys, I’m gonna get donuts.”

 

With a mock salute and a flash of blue, Five was gone, leaving a forlorn Luther staring through the now empty doorway.

 

“Do you think he’d bring some back?”

 

Klaus patted Luther’s arm in sympathy once more, “I wouldn’t count on it, sorry. D’you want some non-burned eggs?”

 

Diego opened his mouth to protest, _again_ , as Klaus offered his plate once more to Luther but, honestly, Luther looked so thrilled to be sharing food that he didn’t have the heart to yell at either of them. So, with an over-dramatic sigh of his own, he chucked the ruined eggs into trash and started a new batch.

 

He didn’t startle when he felt a solid weight against his back, arms coming to wrap around his middle, but it was a near thing. He glanced over his shoulder to see Klaus grinning up at him, resting his bony chin on his shoulder before giving him a peck on the cheek.

 

“What’s that for? You trying to make me burn these, too?” Diego laughed, but he knew his tone was absolutely _oozing_ fond and besotted.

 

“Nah,” Klaus’s answering smile was nothing short of radiant, in Diego’s opinion, and certainly enough to make up for a batch of burnt eggs, “just wanted to say thank you. I appreciate you feeding me, even though I’m a brat.”

 

Diego pressed a kiss to Klaus’s mouth before turning back to the stove with another laugh, “Yeah, well you’re kind’a _my_ brat, so I’ve got a responsibility to keep you happy and well fed.”

 

Diego leaned back into the embrace as he felt Klaus’s arms squeeze him, felt him press his smile into the back of his neck, feeling something warm and bright settle in his chest at the thought that he was able to spark those smiles.

 

“You do. I’m very happy and well fed -- especially happy.”

 

Diego blushed, clearing his throat to hide the pleased embarrassment, “Is this just a way to distract me from noticing you still haven’t eaten anything?”

 

Klaus laughed, giving Diego one last kiss to his neck before releasing him and allowing himself to be shooed back to his seat at the counter, “That was not my intention when I went over there, and would have been nothing more than a happy side effect had it worked.”

 

“Shut up and eat your eggs.”

 

“Sir, yes, sir!”

 

Diego rolled his eyes, turning back to the stove with a grin. He spotted Klaus hand Luther a fork under the counter top, pushing his plate to sit in between them, but Diego decided it was probably time to pick his battles and sharing half his breakfast with Luther meant he was still eating _something_ , right?

 

Besides, the two of them looked so damn pleased with themselves for getting away with something, and listening to their murmured laughter as he cooked he felt-- _good_. Good in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible even just a year ago. Good like he was more than just needed, like he was _wanted_. And so he listened to Klaus and Luther talking over their shared breakfast, and hummed a song that made him think of the person who’d worked so hard to keep them happy and well fed as kids, and he thought that for once in his life he felt like there was no other place on earth he’d rather be.

_\---_

 

_End._

  


**Author's Note:**

> So Margaret and I were totally enamored with the idea of Diego (written here by Margaret) and Klaus (written here by Cole), and with the idea of Kliego week -- and ESPECIALLY with the opportunity to write together. This is the result. Both of us are over on tumblr too, at the same urls, and we'd really dig hearing what you think and/or yelling about these two with you.


End file.
